


Orestes Feasting and Pylades Sober

by distantattraction



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, everybody dies: the book the movie the life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-06-26
Packaged: 2017-12-16 06:31:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/858943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distantattraction/pseuds/distantattraction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Grantaire is awake to join his friends when they die on the barricade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orestes Feasting and Pylades Sober

"Grantaire, put that bottle _down._ "

Grantaire stops with the glass at his mouth, head tilted back to take a drink, but the wine halted in its tracks by his closed lips. Enjolras is looking at him with fire in his eyes--there's always fire in his eyes, there's fire in his voice, there's fire in his heart and his soul and his _eyes_ \--but that fire is all the more real now because they're surrounded by guns and the lead they're melting into bullets.

The world carries on around them, but Grantaire is frozen in place, staring at Enjolras, where he too stands still. They don't speak, they don't blink, they don't move at all.

And then Grantaire lifts the bottle from his lips and says "Alright."

Enjolras blinks at that. He hadn't expected acquiescence--and honestly, Grantaire hadn't, either. But he'd looked at Enjolras with students arming themselves like soldiers behind him, and he's smart enough to know that this might be the last time he sees him breathing.

He doesn't want to see that fire be extinguished, but he wants to feel it burn him one last time.

When Grantaire gets to his feet, Enjolras only nods and hands him a rifle. Combeferre passes him a blade--he's more used to a foil, but the sword is a familiar weight in his hand--which Grantaire slides into the tricolor tied around his waist.

Tomorrow, he thinks, Lamarque has his funeral.

Tomorrow, they die.

He wonders if he is the only one who yet knows.

 

The position may be good, and the barricade may be fine, but Grantaire knows that it will never be enough. This fight was doomed from the start, and he _knows_ this, so why is he still here? Why was he ever here in the first place?

He looks to Enjolras without even meaning to turn his head, and he knows why. There is no place he would rather be than at Enjolras' side. There is no better place _for_ him to be.

He's surrounded by friends. They lean on the crates and chairs they'd cobbled together to form this barricade. The light of the moon makes shadows out of the flags they've planted at its crest, and the darkness falls on their faces.

They're all quite young to be making friends with Death, but there isn't a trace of fear on any of their faces.

Grantaire stoops briefly before he stands, his fingers closing deftly over the neck of the bottle at his feet. He walks over to Courfeyrac, holding the wine out to him.

"Drink with me."

Courfeyrac takes the bottle with a smile.

 

It's the last time Grantaire sees that smile. It's the last time anyone sees that smile.

The next time he sees Courfeyrac, there's a pistol in his hand and a bayonet in Grantaire's--his sword was taken from him, but there were plenty of substitute weapons around, even when there was no ammunition left for their guns. Their ears are ringing. Everywhere, cannons fire, guns fire. Grantaire can hear nothing else.

But somehow, he manages to turn around in time to see the shot that fells Courfeyrac connect. He runs to him, falling to his knees beside the body of his friend, but there is nothing to be done. The shot was a clean one, the bullet lodged solidly in Courfeyrac's head.

Grantaire turns, but everywhere he looks there are familiar faces turned lifeless. Bahorel with bruises on his cheeks and a smile still playing about his lips, even in death; Joly and Bousset still side-by-side, and Grantaire wonders if the bullet that killed one was the same one to kill the other; Feuilly hangs half off the side of a door, a pistol on the ground where it slipped from his fingers when a shot silenced his conviction.

Atop the barricade, Grantaire sees Combeferre reaching for the hand of a wounded fighter. He takes the man's weight on his shoulders, and three soldiers take advantage of his shifted focus to strike with their bayonets. One pierces through his flesh; light glints off the parts of the blade that blood does not cling to.

A strangled cry carries even over the gunfire, and Grantaire looks up to see a flash of red vanishing from the window of the Musain, and he heads immediately for its door. Unfortunately, he was not the only one to hear Enjolras' shout, and Grantaire is not fast enough to get to the stairs first.

He follows the soldiers as they run. There are eight, or a dozen, or more; it's too many for him to take on, too many even for Enjolras. The end is the end, and Grantaire knows enough to recognize it when it arrives. The soldiers face Enjolras with their rifles raised, and for a moment, Grantaire stands unseen behind him, his eyes closed and his heart breaking. Enjolras refuses their pity, refuses to give them anything but his life, and Grantaire listens as he spits fire for the last time.

" _Vive la République!_ J'en suis." The words leave his mouth without his having thought them. All eyes turn to him, and he thinks he feels his heart stop-- _not yet_ \--when he looks past the soldiers to meet Enjolras' gaze. Yes, there is fire in him yet, Grantaire can _feel_ it. "Vive la République!" he says again, never taking his eyes from Enjolras'. His are locked onto Grantaire's as he approaches.

It is not until he stands at Enjolras' side that Grantaire spares a look for the soldiers. "Faites-en deux d'un coup," he tells them. A thought crosses his mind, and he turns once more to Enjolras. "Permets-tu?"

Enjolras takes his hand with a smile, and Grantaire feels fire ignite in himself.

He's so focused on the curl of Enjolras' lips that he almost doesn't hear the guns fire.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the gratuitous French at the end there; it's all lifted straight from Hugo's text, however, so you probably know the translations as well as I do.


End file.
